If there's a cliche angle to tell the story of 8Wired---say from the HOLLYWOOD angle---then we could probably say it's a love story..:)The fact that why Soren Ericksen made his name in New Zealand instead of Denmark where there‘s no shortage of big names brewers is sort of well documented( for those who are in the known)This week's column is a short chit chat with Soren.

QUOTES:-#why New Zealand?"I moved to NZ 8 years ago. My wife is from NZ so I followed her down
here, same old story really."#what makes you think 8wired could work?"The response was good right from the beginning but more importantly
I liked what we were brewing. We never really had a plan set out to grow big
but it always felt like it could work."

#comments from various people(ratebeer/advocate..)affects you?"It doesn't affect my personal mood or mental state, no. But I do
take the feedback on board and try and improve things that people don't like.
If I agree with them at least, if it is just a matter of personal preference,
there is not much we can do about that."#winning( or not) international awards--affects you?"It makes me happy to win awards of course but it doesn't affect the
way we are brewing or which beers we are making."#brew at own pace or do more to meet increasing demand?"We have always been relatively limited by capacity and flexibility,
but we are in the process of building a new brewery. Once this is fully up and
running in early 2015 we will have a lot of room to grow. We don't have any
specific sales targets, nor do we have a cap on how big we want to be. But I
don't have much desire to become so big that I loose touch with the daily
production of brewing."

#what to expect in the next 12-18month'?"There will be a lot of new beers when the new
brewery is operational. On top of that we have the biggest program of barrel
aged sour beers in the southern hemisphere (250 barrels currently). These are
slowly starting to mature so there will be a lot of these released in the next
couple of years. "

#in South east asia--only Singapore is ok to homebrew--Bangkok & KL is illegal to do that--how to help spread the craft culture?

"Good question, i don't know. Homebrewing is always one of the best
ways to start a good beer culture, but if that is not legal, then I don't
know..."

#words for newbie"Keep an open mind and try as many different beers as you can find:)

NOT included in the newspaper column#any ritual when brewing?"Not really. The only think I would mention is that I hate to store open bags of hops, so every recipe I write is in multiples of 5 kg."#on being invited to CBC(Copenhagen beer celebration)

"We've been invited to CBC all three years but have
only managed to make it to one of them. We will be back next year though. It is
of course a great honour to be invited to join such a great line up of
world class breweries."

"Great experience of course. Not just trying many
different beers but also networking with breweries from all over the world."